Saturday, May 31, 2008

"Local rights groups organized a campaign to show solidarity with 18 Yemeni citizens who were allegedly burnt by Saudi authorities while they were trying to hide themselves from security authorities in Khamis Bani Mushait, a town on the Saudi side of the Yemen- Saudi border." (thanks John)

Decoding New York Times' headlines. You know that one could do a daily service of decoding the headlines of the New York Times. For example, take this one: "Growing Opposition to Iraq Security Pact." This one means "growing opposition to Iraq occupation pact but occupation is good for Iraqis." Or take this one: "Musharraf Denies He Is Stepping Down." This one means: "US denies that Musharraf is stepping down." Or this one: "In Disclosure, North Korea Contradicts U.S. Intelligence on Its Plutonium Program." This one means: "How dare anybody contradict US intelligence." Or this one: "Secretary Gates Visits Guam Military Base." This one means: "We like you Secretary Gates. We really do." Or this one: "Baghdad Jews Have Become a Fearful Few." This one means: "Non-Jews in Iraq are happy, secure, and prosperous and it is anti-Semitic to state otherwise." Or this one: "Iraqi Military Extends Control in Northern City." And it means: "US occupation forces order Iraqi puppet forces to move northwards." Or this one: "Spain’s Top Chefs Clash Over Ingredients and Culinary Innovations." And it means: "US fast food is the best food in the world." And on and on and on but I have to grade now.

It was ironic for Walid Jumblat, of all people, to attack Muhammad Hasanayn Haykal for owning a farm and for staying in the Dorchester in London. Now it is true that Muhammad Hasanyn Haykal has a difficulty in mention UK or London without mentioning that he stays in the Dorchester (as in: "And then Lord Potato sent a telegram to Nasser--and by the way, I stay at the Dorchester in London)--which is Sa`d Hariri's favorite hotel in London. But Jumblat has reportedly pressured Hariri to buy him that palace in Qantari, and he put a deputy (Ni`mah Tu`mah) on his list only because he put his private jet at his disposal and he funds his "campaigns." This Tu`mah has the knowledge of tomatoes and the charisma of potatoes. So Jumblat is not in a position to attack somebody for his bourgeois lifestyle (Jumblat in private used to attack his own deputies and ministers for their bourgeois lifestyles).

Disagreement in Saudi media? Al-Hayat has a headline that there is "a Sunni-Shi`ite consensus" in rejecting the Iraqi-American security agreement, while Hariri rag headlines: "Iran incites Iraqis against the agreement."

Al-Quds Al-`Arabi is reporting that Hamas will accept all Saudi conditions for the reconciliation with Fath--basically. Hamas will devote its organization to its top priority: to ban pornographic sites in Gaza.

I am sick and tired of Hamas leaders saying that they have ways to break the siege of Gaza. If you do, break it. But I believe that Hamas leaders are more preoccupied with their top priorities: like banning internet porn in Gaza.

Walid Jumblat clearly wrote this press release that was issued by his "socialist" and "progressive" party in response to Muhammad Hasanyn Haykal's recent criticisms of Jumblat. But Haykal deserved the criticisms: he never has the courage to go all the way in any criticism of anybody. He criticized Jumblat, and then calls him "my friend." Just as three weeks ago he said something about King Hasan II of Morocco, and then he stressed that he was his friend. Even with Sadat: he is restrained in his criticisms. And last year when he spoke to the Independent about Mubarak, he later explained away his words. But this is Haykal: I don't know why he is careful. He always acts that he needs not burn his bridges because he may hold a ministerial position. It is too late in the game, Mr.

"Bahrain will execute a Bangladeshi in firing squad for killing a fashion designer of that country, reported All Headline News, a US-based news website on Thursday. The date for execution of Mizan Noor Al Rahman Ayoub Miyah is yet to be fixed. Mizan, a cook, was convicted of murdering Sana Al Jalahama in 2006 but the execution decision comes at a time when Bahrain stopped issuing work permits to Bangladeshis, All Headline News said."" (thanks Akram)

""Mailer feuded with me. I knew Norman's syndrome. If I was on the cover of Time and he wasn't, my God he would be insulting me in the press. He couldn't stop. He lived for his little swig of PR." "Truman Capote?" "Capote I truly loathed. The way you might loathe an animal. A filthy animal that has found its way into the house." "What was Capote doing that you didn't like?" "Lying," Vidal shouts. "The one thing I hate most on this earth. Which is why I do not have a friendly time with journalists.""

Sulayman's new man. Faris Sufiya (or Soufia) was Sulayman's military attache in the Lebanese Embassy in Washington, DC. He was close to the US administration and to Elias Al-Murr. He was recently summoned by Sulayman to serve as one of his closest advisers in the presidential palace. Sulyman is under the false impression that Al-Murr and Soufia were behind changing the US attitude toward him. In reality, the Bush administration (and Gulf regimes) changed their position toward him because he made private promises regarding Lebanon's foreign policy and on the disarming of Hizbullah.

Friday, May 30, 2008

Saudi minister of Interior and Torture and Beheading, Nayif bin `Abdul-`Aziz, said that Saudi Arabia does not want to increase the number of prisoners in the kingdom. So all convicts will simply be beheaded now.

"Iraqi President Jalal Talabani called on Hizbullah's secretary general Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Friday not to interfere in Iraq's internal affairs. "Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah does not have the right to interfere in Iraq's internal affairs, as we have not interfered in Lebanon's affairs," Talabani said after a large-scale meeting with heads of Iraqi dailies and newspapers." And for comic relief, Talabani added: ""Iraq is an independent country..." (thanks A.)

It is amusing that pro-House of Saud columnists in the Arab media have just started to criticize Bush--few months before the end of his term. Call that courage. But then again: those same people courageously attack House of Saud's enemies in the Arab media.

"The hardline president of Jordan's Bar Association says authorities canceled an event that was to host the U.S. ambassador after pressure from the lawyers' union. Saleh Armouti says he and dozens of other lawyers staged a protest at Palace of Justice, which houses several Jordanian courts and where U.S. ambassador David Hale was to attend a ceremony. At the rally, the lawyers shouted: «No to the visit of Iraq's occupier and the enemy of Arabs. The union groups about 10,000 lawyers, many of them linked with hardline Muslim and leftist groups that perceive Washington's Mideast policy as biased toward Israel and bent on controlling Arab oil wealth. Jordanian government officials were not immediately available for comment. The U.S. Embassy declined comment.""

Lies, trickery, and deception were integral to the Zionist project: "b Maintaining strict secrecy about modern bombs in their arsenal, leading Arab nations to believe Israel had only World War II-era bombs, and misleading the enemy about new systems that allowed Israel to service its bombers in just 7.5 minutes so they could resume attacks."

"Norwegian Deputy Defense Minister Espen Barth Eide, whose nation launched the negotiations in February 2007, said he was confident that the treaty would discourage the United States, Russia, China, Israel and other proponents of cluster bombs to use the weapons again." Don't bet on it. Nothing will discourage them.

"U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said on Thursday he will seek to adopt novel Israeli methods, like behaviour-detection technologies, to better secure America's airports." He may be impressed with Israeli torture techniques and racism.

You think that you only read such trash in US media? Think again. ""Israelis have a reputation for being some of the most beautiful people to grace this Earth and I can clearly see why. Three years of national service keeps their bodies fighting fit." (thanks Asa)

"Riaz Muhammad Khan earned the ire of Asif Ali Zardari because of his opposition to Zardari’s insistence on a UN investigation into the dastardly assassination of Benazir Bhutto. Distress over the crime is understandable. Diplomatic illiteracy is not; least of all arrogance of power and its boorish display. The proposal is at once devoid of legality, impractical and futile; wholly unnecessary; fraught with unpredictable consequences, and demeaning. Rafik Hariri’s case is not a precedent to emulate but a warning to heed. Lebanon lost control over the proceedings. The United States did the running in the name of the United Nations. It smuggled spies into Iraq as UN Inspectors."" (thanks Sultan)

"Armitage, currently an adviser to presidential candidate John McCain, had once been Colin Powell's closest ally during the bitter disputes inside the Bush administration over the invasion and occupation of Iraq. According to the Washington Post's Bob Woodward, Armitage advised Powell on more than one occasion to tell the neocons to "go fuck themselves," and, at one point, even refused to deliver a speech about Iraq drafted for him by Vice President Dick Cheney's office. Yet, three years after those epic battles, Armitage is enjoying life as a stakeholder in a dozen private companies that are making money directly from the war started by his former nemeses." (thanks Laleh)

"The American State Department has withdrawn all Fulbright grants to Palestinian students in Gaza hoping to pursue advanced degrees at American institutions this fall because Israel has not granted them permission to leave." (thanks Tsolin and Cheryl)

Thursday, May 29, 2008

There is no doubt about it. Nicholas Blanford is more loyal to the Hariri family than Fu`ad Sanyurah. But Blanford, forgot in his reporting, to tell the readers that Sa`d Hariri waved to the crowd: "Earlier, he had visited the Makassad Hospital in Beirut to send his best wishes to the wounded from Monday night’s fighting and the battles of three weeks ago." Also, did Blanford get a free copy of Blanford's hagiographic biography of Rafiq Hariri? I mean, he should have as Sa`d Hariri is in the habit of giving free copies of the book.

"The man who told the Argentine junta’s Foreign Minister, Cesar Guzzetti: “We wish [your] government well”? The man who promised his South African counterpart to “curb any missionary zeal of my officers in the State Department to harass you”? The man who told the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet: “We are sympathetic with what you are trying to do here”?"

Hizbullah: the new fans of Sanyurah. I have it on very good authority that Hizbullah's TV, Al-Manar, has decided (unlike LBC, NTV, OTV, ANB and NBN) to not report on comments that Emile Lahhud has made against Fu'ad Sanyurah today.

Fattush post (Fattush posts refers to posts that contain several not necessarily related items). I am still grading and I get very grumpy during grading and final times. I feel the stress of time, and I don't like that. Furthermore, I don't believe in grades or exams but I have to do it. Anyway, so I return home after giving a final and turn on my TV. There was some discussion about Arab media on Al-Arabyya TV. The first person I see, is `Ali Salim. And if there somebody I despise in Arab media and culture, it is `Ali Salim. He is the Egyptian cartoonish playwright (whose success is the Egyptian play, Madrasat Al-Mushaghibin (not original to him of course) who drove his car to visit Israel to prove that he is civilized. He was so rewarded by Zionist groups: they translated his silly book into English, but he became ostracized in Egyptian non-official circles. Basically, I will summarize to you the discussion: AlJazeera is responsible for most of the terrorism in the world. I kid you not. The anchorperson would ask, for example: did "some media" not promote terrorism by talking about "the Palestinian question and other social issues"? And the guests would largely agree. One guest from Jordan (and he was pro-regime) felt that the festival has gone too far in its rhetoric. A Saudi columnist summarized the crux: he told the audience that "we Arabs are backward." He said that conspiracy theories are in the "chromosomes" of Arabs. More condemnations of AlJazeera followed. Some would name it and others would say "that major TV station." By the way, a guest on AlJazeera recently told me that guests have been recently forewarned not to mention Saudi Arabia on the air. That would explain my absence. MEMRI would carry `Ali Salim's words, I am sure. By the way, two weeks ago, Al-Ittijah Al-Mu`akis had a debate between two guys on the question of Israel, 60 years after the occupation of Palestine. Ibrahim `Allush spoke for the anti-Israeli perspective, and his remarks were covered by MEMRI. But what was most interesting--and remain uncovered--is what the other guest (pro-Arab regimes, and pro-West) said on the matter. He was brought in to speak softly about Israel, or to say that the Palestinian question is not important. The fellow prefaced his remarks by saying that Israel is a cancer and then went on an anti-Semitic diatribe. But then again, we find that Zionists seem to be enamored with anti-Semites as of late (and not as of late too). People have asked me whether there was an drop in visitorship to the blog since I shut off the comments' section. The answer seems to be no: you may check here (the mountain peak was during the Lebanon crisis). But who cares about ratings anyway: one student (Brian if you are out there), once told me that bloggers should just disregard the question of rating: it may be distracting, and he is right. I still receive support for shutting down the comments' section, but some 3 or 4 people complained. I feel it is more quiet like that, and it got so out of hand that by the end there was clear attempts and sabotage and political spamming.

"The deal involves a cast of influential characters, including the king of Jordan’s brother-in-law, who is suing Harry Sargeant III, a top Florida-based fundraiser for Sen. John McCain's presidential bid." (thanks Blake)

Life is not easy. ""In the last few years, a growing number of collaborators from Gaza have ended up in the Israeli town of Sderot, the place that, more than any inside Israel, has come under missile fire from Palestinian militants in Gaza. It is one reason, the collaborators say, that life is not easy."" (thanks Ali)

"Now residents of the city are abuzz that some Americans whom they consider occupiers are also acting as Christian missionaries. Residents said some Marines at the western entrance to their city have been passing out the coins for two days in what they call a "humiliating" attempt to convert them to Christianity." (thanks Mal)

A reader from Djibouti sent me this: "By the way, just to mention you you that we organized this month the first commemoration of the Nakba in Djibouti... The turnout was really amazing and great! People were even asking to organize more events and actions."

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

I am sad to report that Middle East scholar, Louis Cantori, has died. I read it in Al-Quds Al-`Arabi before I had a chance to see it in a US newspapers. I was not a close friend of Lou but I have known him for years, since my graduate school days in Washington, DC. He was a kind and supportive person, and was very encouraging of new scholars in the field. He was very patient with students, and I know that his graduate students at Georgetown (where he taught as adjunct for years) really liked him. He served in the Marines and there was an aspect of his personality that reflected that: he argued strongly and forcefully, and was often frustrated with US Middle East policy. He also spoke like a commanding officer. Last time I saw him he was most frustrated at US media (and even academic) references to neo-conservatives. He, as a graduate of the University of Chicago, believed that they all got it wrong when they stressed the influence of Leo Strauss when it was Albert Wohlstetter who was the biggest influence on the neo-cons. I wonder what he thought of Anne Norton's fine book, Leo Strauss and the Politics of American Empire.

"Does Dunkin’ Donuts really think its customers could mistake Rachael Ray for a terrorist sympathizer? The Canton-based company has abruptly canceled an ad in which the domestic diva wears a scarf that looks like a keffiyeh, a traditional headdress worn by Arab men." (thanks Ali)

"Said Nazir says these days he can afford only donkey meat sausages for dinner, which his cat won't even touch. Hani Salem, a plainclothes cop, wants to know how you can raise a child -- his wife is pregnant with their first -- on $67 a month. That doesn't sound bad to Ahmed Ali Mahmoud, who left the sugar cane fields to seek his fortune in Cairo only to find a job parking cars and sleeping on the floor of a garage owned by Sedgi Hafez, who, with a propane flame and a battered kettle, sells tea on the corner and tends to his wife and seven children." (thanks Ashraf)

"I was visiting my local Toyota dealer in Bethesda, Md., last week to trade in one hybrid car for another." Oh, really? So what do you want from me? A blender? You need a reward because you are driving a hybrid? Do you want poor people to buy hybrids too even if they can't afford it? And how did that pie-in-your-face taste? Was it creamy enough for you? When I read Thomas Friedman writing about energy and conservation I get a strong urge to waste energy. I get a strong urge to cut down trees and to turn on all lights in the house, and to operate my blender on gasoline. Some people are most annoying when they do this public service schtick; when they act all righteous. I feel the same when I watch public service announcement on right-wing, LBC-TV of Lebanon. When I see them addressing drunken driving, I get the urge to get drunk and drive all over California. Spare me, please.

Zionist gimmicks that fool no one. Israel's propaganda offices in the US have been sending Druze and Bedouin diplomats to speak on collage campuses. They think that they can fool college audiences by pretending that there is full equality in the Zionist racist state. But lest we forget, the Apartheid state of South Africa used to do the same when it would send Buthelezi's men to speak in the US--and we know about the close ties between the Apartheid state of South Africa and the Apartheid state of Zion. Last year, I debated a Bedouin counsel general (who had served in Israeli occupation forces and intelligence) at UC, Berkeley, and his feelings were hurt when I refused to shake his hands. I was told he is still complaining about that to this very day.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Hamas and Super Censorship. After Hamas has installed super censors on the internet to ban pornographic websites, the internet in Gaza has slowed down substantially, and some are not being able to log in. Hamas can't protect Palestinians from the savage aggression of Israel, but they sure can protect them from...porn. Such are the priorities of political Islam.

"“The collapse of the administration’s rationales for war, which became apparent months after our invasion, should never have come as such a surprise. … In this case, the ‘liberal media’ didn’t live up to its reputation. If it had, the country would have been better served.”"

The signs are clear. I smell tensions in the air in Lebanon. I told you so: Saudi Arabia will not allow the Doha Agreement to proceed. Look at the Saudi media: the mouthpiece of Prince Salman (Ash-Sharq Al-Awsat) is the best indicator of Saudi foreign policy, I think. The insistence of the US/Saudi Arabia on the re-appointment of Sanyurah is yet another indication of more provocations to come.

Saja kindly translated my article on Sri Lankan maids which was published in Arabic in Al-Akhbar two months ago. (Saja tells me that she had a hard time translating the word "wawa" so she kept it as it is):"To a Sri Lankan Maid, on Her Day

I see you upset. What’s the matter? Mother’s Day is your day. It has passed, but they didn’t honor you. Shame on them for their short-sightedness. The holiday is for them only because of their genetic supremacy which obsesses them and decays their minds. You’re standing alone on the balcony. Why? Did they impose deadly isolation on you? This holiday is for you. You left your family and children and came to land of cedars and trifles to make a living. Sri Lankan Maid in Lebanon, how great your suffering, and how unfair your oppressors. Undoubtedly the contradiction between their slogans and their practice disgusts you. Do you sense anguish when you listen to their speeches? March 14 talks about freedom, but they know not what freedom is and they’re hostile to it in actual practice. Why do you approach the edge of the balcony? Do the depths beckon you? I fear for your destiny and the destiny of all foreign maids in Lebanon.Every week we hear about a Sri Lankan or Ethiopian maid throwing herself off a balcony. We hear about maids hanging themselves with sheets or blankets or ropes. The news passes casually, without condemnation or demand for investigation. In some newspapers, these events are reason for jesting and joking, as Egyptians say. The Security Council is held for “he who supposes that his wealth makes him immortal,” not for you. You do not have private jets to impress the petty or to show to the Counsel General of the Arab League or Terje Roed-Larsen. You’re modest but not inferior.Sri Lankan maid in Lebanon, how great your suffering and how heavy your worries. Do you hear those in 8 and 14 March speak about the advantages and disadvantages of skin color with blatant racism? The leaders and the educated in 8 and 14 March easily say: “we’re not Somalia,” or “we’re not Kenya.” Samir Frenja, who we’re told is to the left of 14 March, constantly boasts of a Lebanon distinguished from African “unenlightenment.” They don’t know they’re of African-Asian descent, even if they do the impossible to appease the white man. They believe they’re of the white race and nothing obsesses them more than flattering the white man politically and socially. This explains why they allow the American ambassador in Lebanon to issue opinions about the Parliament and the constitution without objection from any party. They think the white man’s concern for them, which is classic colonial concern, is evidence of their sophistication. This explains why both sides allowed Terje Roed-Larsen (Israel and the United States’ envoy to the United Nations) to discuss issues related to electoral rules and ticket structure. If he were Black, he would’ve been deported from their country.What goes on in your mind while you listen to their blatant, unmistakable racism? They fearlessly and shamelessly insult ethnicities, the poor and Blacks. They don’t even try to mask their racism. On the contrary, they display it because they think it morally enhances them. Do you see them avoiding touching you? Of course, they think you’re sexually available for their sons’ or fathers’ desires. They rape you regularly and your self-defense angers them. Is this why we periodically read about Sri Lankan and Ethiopian maids’ suicide in Lebanon? If Sri Lankan maids’ periodic suicides were investigated, the facts would become clear and those deemed respectable in society would be exposed as rapists and harrassers and batterers. Didn’t they desecrate you? They desecrate you in the homeland of hollow slogans. To whom can you complain? To whom can you unload your burdens? To police stations which share society’s racism and classism? To the Ministry of Interior which has become a branch of a militia owned by a rich family the House of Saud implanted in Lebanon?SuicideI will never forget Sushar Roxi. Do you remember her? That poor Sri Lankan maid who died by hanging in front of spectators and cameras. Do you remember when the city of Sidon’s people woke up to find her dangling from the balcony, after she’d hanged herself with linens? Do you wonder why she hanged herself? Do you wish you could ask her? She dangled from the balcony for hours and nobody noticed or cared. Why did Sushar hang from the balcony and why do we never hear of investigations? She committed suicide in the morning’s early hours and nobody investigated what happened to her the previous night. Every time, the police arrives and the family opines that the victim missed her family and hence committed suicide. The case is closed, assuming one had been opened in the first place. Police arrive to pay lip service. The Lebanese gentleman and lady – do you notice how concerned they are with titles? – do with you whatever they want? Everyone obtains a title and you sometimes find those who don’t respond if addressed without a title. They’re gentlemen, ladies, beyks and complexes who walk the earth. The police reiterate that you’re depressed due to homesickness. And you hang from the balcony for hours without anyone of conscience caring. The three large communities’ congresses convene every month and discuss all subjects, even the border conflict between Ecuador and Columbia, but they don’t talk about you. Even the Communist Party doesn’t talk about you in its statements. Perhaps they’re influenced by Karl Marx’s classist divisions, as he probably viewed you as the “lumpen proteriat” (we have read in Marx’s biography by Francis Wayne that his record of treating his family’s housemaid wasn’t exactly taintless).Sri Lankan maid in Lebanon, how abominable your fate in your deadly homesickness. You made a grave mistake by coming to our country. This is a country obsessed with pleasing the white man and you occupy the country’s lowermost rung of the class and ethnic totem pole. They disallow you from sitting at their dining tables. They’ve never heard of the emancipation of slaves. They buy slaves and concubines by bringing a foreign maid to their houses. The maid is necessary in order to teach children the principles of racism, classicism and hatred. You’re necessary for the Lebanese notion. I see you indifferent about contests between 8 and 14 March. They’re equally racist against you.Absent MediaDo you dream of going home? Does the earth collapse beneath your feet? What’s the harm if you leave our land? Your pursuit of income brought you to this openly racist and classist country. If they could have it their way, they never would’ve enacted a law against slavery. They’re slave masters because they think it brings them closer to the white man. I see you sullen on your holiday. It’s your holiday. You crossed oceans to bring income for your family in Sri Lanka. You deserve two Mother’s Days, not one. You care for your own children in Sri Lanka and also the children of the middle and bourgeois classes. Don’t you cringe when some families insist that you wear servants’ uniform? In Lebanon they’re influenced by the western movies they’re watched about the era of colonialism and slavery, so forgive them. Or don’t. They feel their social status would skyrocket if the neighbors saw you wearing your distinct uniform. These are traditional Lebanese methods of climbing the class and social ladder.Sri Lankan maid in Lebanon, you’re so absent from the media. Only Carol Mansour in her film “Worker/Industry in Lebanon” sought to tell your story to an audience that doesn’t care. If the movie were about pursuing the “wa-wa” (a popular song by Lebanese singer Haifa Wehbe) or the Saudi Janadriyah festival, the entire country would’ve watched it and bestowed awards. But the film’s discourse was addressed to a western audience as if the west would care and arrive in a Cole battleship to liberate you. The west doesn’t care about you in spite of its slogans and freedom from class and ethnic repression and sexual enslavement. The skillful Nancy Al-Sab’ recently investigated your political opinions and did so with immense respect. But the media hardly mentions foreign maids’ suicide in Lebanon. Western human rights organizations are too busy attending to the rockets that have poured on Israel during its aggression towards Lebanon and liberal organizations in Lebanon are excused. They don’t see any human rights violations besides the arrest of Michel Kilo. Racism against the Syrian people, the Palestinian people and Lebanon’s Shia has a history of providing housemaids that predates the war. The Lebanese do not understand how they could be equated with those who provide them with housemaids. They’re the most ardent believers of rigid ethnic and class hierarchy. That’s why they order you to stand while they loiter in cafes. They order you to walk behind them while they walk smugly in their streets. Didn’t employment offices in Sri Lanka warn you about this country’s racism?When the Lebanese gather in the sectarian expression plaza in Beirut for sectarian protests, doesn’t their speech of freedom bother you? Doesn’t their hypocrisy anger you as they steadfastly praise freedom during the day only to return to their houses to exercise repression and violence against you? Even the feminists of the society that considers itself sophisticated, don’t you hear their talk about their festivities only to return home to scold you for the silliest reasons? They talk about women’s rights and they only mean bourgeois women’s rights just like the American feminist movement is limited to white educated women.Superiority ComplexSri Lankan woman in Lebanon, you’re enslaved in Lebanon. You come to a country that imagines itself advanced while it is behind your homeland. What occurs to you as you listen to Said Aql and May Al-Murr (who both expressed joy when Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982) as they lie about Lebanese superiority and alleged Phoenician civilization? What if you were to read Nabil Abu Munsif’s writing – expert on local news and Lebanese genius simultaneously – about worldwide Lebanese genius? Don’t you wish you could scream in their faces? Don’t you wish you could expose their claims? If only you could protect yourself, you would’ve told them that Sri Lanka also has scientists and artists, and Lebanon even shows off its criminals, tricksters, thieves and embezzlers as long as they were of Lebanese descent. They even boast about the non-Lebanese as part of Lebanese global genius if their name appears Lebanese such as Elia Kazan, the American director of Lebanese descent, whom the LBC celebrated only because it thought he was from the Qazan family. Don’t you feel a strong urge to inform them that their claims stem from centuries of colonization and racism built on theories of some races’ superiority over others?This is your holiday, Sri Lankan woman in Lebanon, and they forget that you’re a woman. To them you are only a housemaid. They even use the Sri Lankan nationality as a derogatory term, just like they use “Kurdish” for degradation. In March 8 and 14, they accuse of each other of being “Sri Lankans” for “the Syrian” or the United States. How did you end up in the capitol of public racism, Sri Lankan guest? Of course, your sisters in other countries also face humiliation and abuse, such that the Philippines prohibited its Filipino servants from traveling to Jordan due to her dire suffering. Our guest from Sri Lanka, you’re welcome to immensely despise this country and to never return. But it is poverty, and poverty conflicts with freedom. Ali bin Abi Talib said “poverty in one’s own homeland is exile” so you suffer two levels of exile: in your own homeland and in this disfigured homeland. You’re a woman, guest from Sri Lanka, but they do not remember that you’re a woman except for the few minutes when they sexually harass you or the house’s boys rape you.They import servants to exercise authority over a human of lesser race in their opinion. It is the Lebanese creed which they ingest and inherit generation to generation. They want maids so they could feel class-wise and ethnically superior, which is why they allow you only to address them using titles they borrow from the white man’s movies. He thinks he’s a gentleman and she thinks she’s a lady and that is only because they pay you $100 or less per month. They have no shame in demeaning you publicly. It’s a tradition, just like sectarianism is a tradition in the land of tabbouleh. When a lady demeans you and screams in your face or when an employer beats you, don’t you wish you could scream in their faces? If you could only say to them: I just saw you on television chanting and preaching about freedom and human rights, and this exposes your truth; enemies of freedom who know of freedom only what Bush uses to market his never-ending wars. If they didn’t own you and forcefully confiscate your passport, you would’ve screamed in their faces and objected to their hypocrisy.Then there is that picture. That woman from Ashrafiyya who supports the Lebanese Forces who dragged a Sri Lankan maid to the sectarian plaza and dumped flags and colors on her. That picture surfaced on the BBC’s website and on websites around the world. That woman repeated her act, thinking it was cute, as if dragging her maid to sectarian wars was a humorous expression. If only you could drag that very woman to a protest in Sri Lanka to show her the hideousness of her act.What do you think about this self-praise about beauty by women of the society that describes itself as velvet when it is roughter than the sack of potato? Aren’t you disgusted by this self-praise? Aren’t you irritated by their beauty standards that sanctify white skin while they descend from mixed African and Asian lineage? Each thinks she descended from the Borboun family. They don’t think you’re beautiful and they call you the vilest and filthiest names. But you’re more beautiful than those who measure beauty with the number of plastic surgeries, the amount of make-up on their faces, and the ability to mimic white western women on the screens of indecency and vulgarity. Don’t believe them; they’re prisoners of the standards they absorbed from their colonizer. Look in the mirror and remember that you’re not encumbered with their complexes and beliefs. They not only demean you, but they also demean people of the Arabian Gulf in spite of their flattery and deception. Were it not for the dinar, they would’ve treated the people of the Persian Gulf the same way they treat you, true lady of Lebanon. They want to resemble Barbie dolls even if those dolls were more real and natural than them. You don’t suffer their existential complexes or countless self-doubts.You watch the screen and notice that you’re absent from Lebanon’s popular culture. You do not exist, in spite of your large numbers in proportion to their populace of this deformed homeland, with the exception of the jokes say about you in their programs. There’s an untalented artist who sang a despicable song about you. They mock and make fun thinking they are superior. They don’t realize how small their country really is, both in size and role. They believe lies fabricated for them by the likes of Fouad Ifram Al-Bustani, Said Aql, May Al-Murr and Jesuit Orientalism. They told them they were the manufacturers of a great civilization, and all they actually built was toilets for bathrooms. They think their country is the only one with cedar trees, even though Morocco’s cedar trees far outnumber theirs. The world knows about them only because of the monstrosity of their civil wars. Monstrosity is the only true claim to fame for Lebanon. Their homeland is the prototype for ferocity of civil war but they still address the world in the barren language of Amin Al-Gemayyel who said during the peak of his country’s civil war, with Israeli support, that he’d “amaze” the world. He amazed the world during his reign only by corruption, repression and relying on outsiders; Israel one day and Syria the next.

Why do I see you walking on the streets of Beirut with your head hanging low? Hold your head high. I want you to walk proudly in spite of them. You’re entitled to belittle their belittlement towards you. You’re the lady, not those who glow with the possession of diamonds and foreign maids. They talk about principles and modernism but they see no fault in your imprisonment, our Sri Lankan guests, in kitchens and bathrooms. Were it not for poverty, you would’ve addressed them with the castigation they deserve. Were it not for poverty, the Sri Lankan maids would’ve demonstrated in the arbitrarily-named “Freedom” Plaza. Were it not for poverty, our Sri Lankan guests would’ve shouted demanding their liberation from slavery. But I won’t lie to you. If you were to demonstrate demanding your rights, we would fire on you without hesitation, and the opposition and the ruling group would’ve united against you. On your holiday, you’re entitled to curse this homeland and its inhabitants."

I know that I write in Al-Akhbar but I want to salute Al-Akhbar for commemorating the gay and lesbian victims of the holocaust on its front page. You would never see that in any Arabic newspaper, I dare say. (Or rarely in a US newspaper for that matter).

Leftists should be avowedly opposed to the formula that was presented in the speech by Hasan Nasrallah yesterday. He called for the co-existence between resistance and reconstruction. That was the formula of the 1990s when Rafiq Hariri was permitted to impose savage capitalism on Lebanon provided that Hizbullah kept its weapons. That is a price that leftists should not be willing to pay. Hariri capitalism should be rejected just as we rejected Israeli occupation and aggression. Both forms kill the innocent.

"We don’t want authority in Lebanon,” Mr. Nasrallah said." The New York Times here translated the word "sultah" as authority. In this instance, it should be power (pouvoire, in French), and not authority, as in "All powers to the Soviets", etc.

"And, still festering is the network’s failure to heal the open sore created by remuneration disparities between the staff of al-Jazeera Arabic and their English channel counterparts. In turn, al-Jazeera English staff resent the erosion of packages that lured them to the fledgling international news service." (thanks Joey)

Ajami bragging: "He has been granted a rare audience with the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's supreme Shia cleric. He counts among his friends Iraqi prime ministers and cabinet ministers." Yes, his friend Ahmad Chalabi took him to say hi to Sistani, and he is friends with Chalabi and Allawi, and US commander in Baghdad recently arranged for him to meet with Maliki. What an honor. What an honor. I mean the folks at the American Task Force on Palestine have met with Muhammad Dahlan, no less, but do you see them bragging? (thanks Amer)

Lebanese film director, Eliane Raheb, sent me this (I am quoting her with her permission): "anyway we have a new president now who looks like peter sellers; he has his absent minded smile in the film "being there" (very nice film, if u didn;t see it) It is only yesterday that i discovered that he can talk; i thought he was mute..."

An American reporter sent me this: "so you didnt hear this from me, because it was off the record, but general fallon, the recently fired head of centcom, told me at a conference this past weekend that he had not been impressed with general sleiman and that he didnt have the right 'vision' for lebanon, but that he would have preferred elias murr for the job of president but unfortunately murr was a greek orthodox so he couldnt be president. on a different subject, fallon also praised ethiopian leader meles, who is a really brutal dictator but who invaded somalia on our behalf. he said meles was trying to do the right thing and that his army chief was a really good guy too"

Monday, May 26, 2008

All these shows on Arab TV stations, like Star Academy or Super Star or even sports competitions, are intended to under mine pan-Arab identities and to further the qutri (narrow) nationalisms by pitting these states against one another.

Remember that Thomas Friedman called Hariri (Mustaqbal) TV, "progressive." On the ostensible comedy show, La Yumal: the ostensible joke today was a man who has to beat his wife unconscious every night because it was good for her insomnia. That was supposed to be funny.PS The following skit was homophoebic. (I misspelled the last word, I am told. I like Arabic books from the last century: they would almost always have this note on the last page; they would say: "And this book contains many errors and mistakes but they will not be missed by the smart and alert reader." I need to add this on my site).

"Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut is trying to pressure YouTube to pull down videos he does not like, and a recent Senate report and a bill pending in Congress also raise the specter of censorship. It is important for online speech to be protected against these assaults."

"The Egyptian People's Assembly (lower house of the parliament) on Monday approved a presidential decree to extend the state of emergency in the country, the official MEN Anews agency reported." It is an insult to the Egyptian people to call Husni Mubarak's club a "parliament".

Ghassan Salamah on Al-Arabiya TV. I saw part of an interview with Ghassan Salamah on Al-Arabiya TV with the lousy propagandist of Iyad `Allawi (former Iraqi puppet prime minister/embezzler-in-Yemen/Saddam's henchman/car bomber), Elie Naqquzi. Salamah said that there is a misconception about Saudi Arabia (and "the forces of moderation" in the Arab world). He said it is not accurate to think that Saudi Arabia agrees with US foreign policy in the Middle East. He said that Saudi Arabia is in disagreement with the American administration in every facet of its policies. He almost claimed that Saudi Arabia believes in the vision of the late George Habash.

Shoes and Arab culture: "The shoes are considered the filthiest part of the body, and to put that on a person's head, which is considered the highest and most noble part, is enormously humiliating." (thanks Huw who provided me with the transcript and who said to me: "I'm often a little unsure when you're being sarcastic and when you're being straight". I once had a student who said the same to me 2 weeks after the beginning of the class. He later dropped the course).

What was the tribute to Rafiq Hariri in Hasan Nasrallah's speech today about? What was that? Watch out. This may be an introduction to a sinister Hariri-Hizbullah sectarian alliance in the next parliamentary election. Also, today Nasrallah (aware of the criticisms of the inconsistent position of the party toward Iraq and the American occupation) spoke on Iraq and praised the resistance in Iraq, but he referred to the puppet government of Nuri Al-Maliki merely as "those who believe in the political process." Those who believe in the "political process" were the militias that perpetrated sectarian cleansing in Iraq, and who served as puppets of occupation, and who expelled the Palestinian refugees from Iraq. They represent the lousy vision of Ayatullah Chess Sistani.

From the Bahraini kingdom: "Several columnists called for the "immediate and irrevocable" deportation of Bangladeshis, warning that failure to take action would mean more hostile behaviour." (thanks Rasha)

"The American mathematician David Mumford, co-winner of the 2008 Wolf Foundation Prize in Mathematics, announced upon receiving the award yesterday that he will donate the money to Bir Zeit University, near Ramallah, and to Gisha, an Israeli organization that advocates for Palestinian freedom of movement. "I decided to donate my share of the Wolf Prize to enable the academic community in occupied Palestine to survive and thrive," Mumford told Haaretz. "I am very grateful for the prize, but I believe that Palestinian students should have an opportunity to go elsewhere to acquire an education. Students in the West Bank and Gaza today do not have an opportunity to do that."" (thanks James)

News from the Kingdom of Horrors: "A Saudi couple forced to divorce by an Islamic court have called for more international pressure to reunite them after Saudi authorities failed to fulfil a pledge to a UN body to do so." (thanks Laleh)

He may be jailed for this: Islamist Saudi lawyer/dissident, Muhsin Al-`Awaji, writes a scathing letter against Prince Al-Walid Bin Talal. But notice how the premise is based on praise for the Saudi founders of the Kingdom and praise for Bin Baz (one of the most reactionary clerics EVER). Al-`Awaji was arrested in the 1990s for a letter he wrote against the Minister of Labor. (thanks Mohsen)

"As India edges closer to what is probably the last year of field trials for Bt Brinjal (eggplant, aubergine) before commercial approval may be granted, large scale resistance has been building up all over the country.Bt Brinjal, if allowed in India, would be the first food crop in the world with the Bt gene inserted into it that is to be directly consumed by human beings. Indians feel that they are about to be made guinea pigs by USAID, and by Monsanto and Cornell University that have developed this crop." (thanks Jocelyn)

"Israel has 150 nuclear weapons in its arsenal, former President Jimmy Carter said yesterday, while arguing that the US should talk directly to Iran to persuade it to drop its nuclear ambitions." In fact, the number is not correct. That was the number when Carter was president. It is much more now.

""Why hasn't anyone got any guts? They've got terrorists amongst 'em... They want to be here so they can go and hide in all the farm houses... This town has every nationality... but Muslims do not fit in this town. We are Aussies, OK."" (thanks A.)

"Human rights groups have for years decried the harsh conditions of foreign laborers in Dubai and the rest of the United Arab Emirates and oil-rich Persian Gulf. But the problem only drew widespread attention after strikes by thousands of workers this year and last. Some recent protests turned violent; in mid-March, police arrested at least 500 South Asian workers who smashed office windows and set cars ablaze in the small, neighboring emirate of Sharjah. Dubai officials were embarrassed by the bad press in a city that advertises itself as a world business hub, playground for the rich and home to major horse races and golf and tennis tournaments. But despite promises of reform, there are still problems, The Associated Press found in interviews with government officials and two dozen workers and visits to employer-provided housing:" (thanks John)

Sunday, May 25, 2008

I read on Al-Manar TV's website that Grand (not at all) Sistani has issued a fatwa banning the sale of food products to the occupiers. Oh, really o Manar TV? So Sistani permits the shining of the shoes of occupiers--literally and figuratively, and the formation of a puppet occupation government, but bans the sale of falafil sandwiches to them? How fierce. Wow. Sistani is confirmation of what Robbespierre said: "clerics are to virtue what charlatans are to medicine."

This is really funny. In fact, it is hilarious. Here: "Rather than being the enemy, most Arab journalists are potential allies whose agenda broadly tracks the stated goals of United States Middle East policy and who can be a valuable conduit for explaining American policy to their audiences." The authors are not Middle East experts, so they don't know that most Arab journalists work for Saudi royal family or their affiliates. What is surprising is that even among this group, you will find such strong opposition to US foreign policy. But the best part of the report is this: "...director of the Kamal Adham Center for Journalism Training and Research at the American University in Cairo." Kamal Adham? Chief of Saudi intelligence under King Faysal? The one who was a conduit to Answar Sadat? OK.

Amin Gemayyel and Saudi Arabia. As some of you know, Saud Al-Faysal, has purchased a house in LA, which he visits regularly for medical reasons. He got to know well a Lebanese businessman there. He recently complained to the businessman that Saudi Arabia gave Amin Gemayyel $5 million to fund the Matn by-election campaign, but that Gemayyel only spent 1$ million and pocketed the rest.

A Western diplomat who served in Lebanon tells me that it was very frustrating for him/her to deal with Michel Sulayman. He/she said that he would barely speak or express an opinion. He would merely listen and nod.

I am not surprised. There is a history of finding Israeli killers to be amusing, adorable, and likable in American popular culture: "Mr. Sandler plays an Israeli assassin who flees to the United States to become a hairdresser."

Basically, nobody knows how the new president of Lebanon will rule. He reveals very little of himself. A knowledgeable source tells me that Sulayman's rise in the Lebanese Army was due to support from Ghazi Kan`an and Emile Lahhud in the 1990s.

For Campus Watch and Zionist hoodlums it is simple: anybody who dares to advocate for the Palestinians and who opposes Zionism and its crimes is by (their) definition an anti-Semite. Their credibility on the matter is equal to the credibility of the House of Saud on women's rights.

I wrote a critical comment below about Jim Quilty's piece on Lebanon for MERIP on-line. Jim sent me his response (I post with his permission): "Dear Professor Abu Khalil:I hope this note finds you well. I'm a beirut-based journalist and so have had occasion to read your blog from time to time. given my political predispositions, I regard the angry arab as a valuable platform for its unsparing criticism of the politics of the middle east, western policy towards the region, and the problematic news coverage of all the above. my friendly attitude toward your work is cemented by the fact that we seem to have a few friends and colleagues in common. An occupational hazard peculiar to english-speakers in this part of the world is that you're likely to be assumed to be an American. It's one canadians like myself have learned to cope with, just as new zealanders are accustomed to being confused with australians, and lebanese are accused of being, or at least speaking, "shami". So when you implied in a recent posting that I am "american" ["The American Left and the Middle East: the case of MERIP, again (the tale of "crazed Shi`i thugs")], I rolled with the punch. I'd like to reply to your critique of this merip-online piece, to clarify a few things. unlike your angry arab posting -- in which, as you inform your readers, you didn't have time for detailed critique -- this clarification will seem a bit windy. I apologise for this in advance: I appreciate brevity but find it hard to be brief when trying to write about Lebanon in nuanced terms. also, for all your busy-ness, you were quite generous in the sheer number of passages from which you chose to quote and comment.The first few lines of your critique are concerned with what you see to be a pro-hariri bias at merip, and nick blanford's descriptive-laudatory book on hariri the elder. This business doesn't concern me directly. you should know, though, that in the editorial process I've experienced with merip since I began contributing to the magazine a couple of years ago, I've encountered no pro-hariri bias or editorial pressure. I realise you won't have much reason to trust my testimony in this, since you regard me to be a member of "Hariri Inc" as well, but I hope to dissuade you of this notion directly. For the record, at the time of the demonstrations of 8 march and 14 march 2005 I was contributing to a (sadly now defunct) political magazine called "Middle East International." If you'd had a chance to read my reports for mei, I think you'd find they were anything but hymns to hariri, his allies and successors. Having looked at your criticisms of the merip-online piece, in which you imply that I am a crypto-liberal ("so-called leftist"), Hariri sympathiser, orientalist, and possibly racist, I see that they all hinge on certain shortcomings in my assumptions and strategies as a writer. These have three facets: assumptions about the audience (that is the critical-minded premises of anyone reading merip); strategies concerning how to relate on-the-ground realities in lebanon in a way that appeals to westerners whose political predispositions make them susceptible to certain pro-14 march portrayals of the events of early May; an exaggerated even-handedness stemming from a desire to abstain from the hysterical polarisation of the political discourse in the country at that time. In your critique, you write: "Here, the word "Lebanese" is used to signify Jumblat and Hariri: "Lebanese did not ask themselves, "Why is Israel bombing us?"" Who are those Lebanese that Quilty is talking about? Certainly he excluded the people of South Lebanon--at least, who--perhaps to the consternation of MERIP--did blame Israel for the...Israeli bombing." I must apologise for any lack of clarity here. The purpose of the first two paragraphs of this merip-online story is to point out that the most common media representation of the 2006 war did not blame the offending party (the Israeli military) but hizbullah, even though the practice of detaining Israeli soldiers in cross-border raids in order to secure the release of Lebanese detainees was well-established by july 2006. Given what I know of merip's readership, I took it as "known" that my audience would know Israel started that war. this was the premise of my merip-online contribution about the 2006 war [http://www.merip.org/mero/mero072506.html]. You will note that when I return to the matter of the 2006 war later in the piece, I write: "The Siniora government immediately depicted that war, and the havoc it wrought in Lebanon, as the fruit of Hizballah unilateralism -- rather than the work of, say, an Israeli government that watches warily as Hizballah becomes entrenched in Lebanese high politics." I assume that anyone reading this sentence will recognise that "work" refers to 34-days of bombing and shelling in 2006. needless to say, Israeli malfeasance in Lebanon arises from the managers of that state watching lebanon "warily", since action follows from scrutiny (in the case of 2006, bad intelligence). When, in your angry arab critique, you later pick up on this "watches warily" business, you inadvertently take it out of its proper context. You write: "And to describe the Israeli role in Lebanon--a country occupied and bombed by Israel consistently since the creation of the state--as "an Israeli government that watches warily", is like describing an elephant as a cucumber." Your remark (evidently written for comic effect) is incontrovertibly true, of course, but you appear to be accusing me of saying the worst thing the Israelis have ever done in Lebanon is "watch warily," which is manifestly not the case. unfortunately, anyone reading your critique without reading the original piece (and, let's face it, your status as an arbiter of critical thought on this region does make that a possibility) would assume that I regard the Israeli government as an innocent bystander in the affairs of this country. such an accusation is not borne out in any of my nearly 10-years of writing on this country and this region. The lead to my merip-online piece was intended to ask why hizbullah was blamed for "provoking" the 2006 war, while the Lebanese government is not blamed for provoking the opposition action in west Beirut in early May. again, I regret any lack of clarity here, but the several beiruti readers I asked to look at the piece [none of them fans of the government] all recognised these intentions, as, I assume, the editors of merip did. You then write: "The ostensibly leftist reporter then adds: "Television images of apparently crazed Shi'i thugs..." When are militia men crazed and when are they thugs and when are they uncrazed? I doubt that MERIP would accept even a description of Israeli soldiers as "crazed Jewish thugs"--can you imagine the uproar--and rightly so--if that was used?" this phrase is taken from the third paragraph of the piece, where I summarise the western and pro-government media representations of what happened in beirut on 7-9 May as a "straw man," which I then devote some words to knocking down. if "Television images of apparently crazed Shi'i thugs firing RPGs at the political offices of Parliament majority leader (and Sunni scion) Saad al-Hariri's Future Movement seem to corroborate narratives of a barbarous insurgency against a democratically elected government", then that tells you something about the shortcomings of television representations of those events and the sometimes gormless consumers of television news. as I write in the next paragraph, to draw such conclusions from these images does "no justice to the political complexities beneath the appearances." You then write: "He then says: "the international community has backed Hizballah's domestic rivals' demand that the Resistance be disbanded." The sentence is inaccurate on both counts: 1) the word "international community is used to camouflage the role of the US--there is no such thing as the "international community" with all due respect to Micronesia; 2) it is not true that the opposition in Lebanon has been calling for disarming Hizbullah. again, I am guilty. I take it as known that "there is no such thing as the "international community"" -- that is to say an "international community" that is somehow autonomous from the web of treaty and financial incentives and obligations that connect "it" to the military, economic and diplomatic interests of America and its allies. As I take this as known, I later point out that: "The order to move against Hizballah may not have come straight from the US embassy or Condoleezza Rice's office, but the speed with which UN Middle East envoy Terje Roed-Larsen took the issue of Hizballah's security apparatus to the Security Council suggests forethought. On May 8, Roed-Larsen informed the UN that Hizballah "maintains a massive paramilitary infrastructure separate from the state" that "constitutes a threat to regional peace and security."" the UN is conventionally represented as one of the institutions of a putatively autonomous "international community"; to suggest, as I do here, that Roed-Larsen's actions look like complicity in American policy interests in this country (or at least those of the 14 march forces) contradicts any supposed belief in UN autonomy on my part, that is to say, an autonomous "international community". Now, you could say that I should not assume that merip readers share my assumptions about the international community and that it's my responsibility to spell out what these assumptions are. I suppose there are also readers out there who assume the world is flat, or that Lebanon is located in southeast asia. I'm afraid I lack the patience to re-assert such basic principles in every political story I write. Mea culpa. I must confess that I don't understand the point of your next remark: "it is not true that the opposition in Lebanon has been calling for disarming Hizbullah." indeed, I have never once heard the hizbullah-led opposition call for hizbullah to disarm, and did not suggest as much in this story - which uses the word "disband," not "disarm". I suspect you wrote these words in haste. the pro-government factions have been calling for hizbullah's coercive capacity to be curbed, of course: whether that involve absorbing hizbullah's operational capacity within the army or not, the desired effect (as far as America and its 14 march clients are concerned) is to eliminate the resistance's capacity to threaten israel. any lack of clarity here can be blamed on editorial shorthand deemed necessary in a piece whose length [I must confess] brings it dangerously near unreadable. You then write: "And he the says: "this nascent militia (mostly composed, it seems, of underemployed young Sunnis from West Beirut." How cute to call a militia nascent. Is this like Jumblat and Hariri calling their militias "non-militias"? And secondly, most of the Hariri militia men in...Beirut are from the...north. And notice that the author passes over the Hariri militia's massacre of SSNP's members in Halba. I thought that he was going to call it "a misunderstanding", just as Hariri and Jumblat called their government decision to spark the mini-civil war as a "misunderstanding."" The focus of this merip-online piece is the opposition action in west beirut, specifically on the context in which it should be understood. The piece does mention halba and the north, as it does alay, but only in passing because (unless they had succeeded in escalating the conflict and dragging hizbullah into a country-wide civil-sectarian conflict) these loyalist-initiated attacks were peripheral to the central discussion. I wasn't interested in slinging mud for its own sake because there was already quite enough of that going on at the time and, again, it wasn't a book but a report. You do raise an interesting question about the composition of the pro-government forces on the ground in west Beirut. You're right that the 'akkar is a source of reserve manpower for Future and there were reports on the first day that busloads of akkarlis were en route to west Beirut to fight for future. I don't have access to how many of those actually made it down to Beirut, or for that matter how many "north Lebanese" were already resident in Beirut in anticipation of this set-to: if you do have access to anything better than anecdotal information about this business, I'd sure appreciate you sharing it. "nascent militia" is, you are right, a generous term.Using it partly stems from the fact that the guys I know in my neighbourhood [qasqas is, as you know, overwhelmingly sunni / mustaqbal] who were involved in the fight, who donned improvised shi masks and took up positions on my building's roof, were [like the young fellow whose portrait was posted at the entrance to my building after he was killed] shabab from the neighbourhood. It stems, too, from the poor performance of the hariri fighters in beirut: I know it's a non sequitur to make competence a prerequisite of militia status, but these guys were so incompetent that it demonstrates the unique level of irresponsibility that future demonstrated in arming them, regardless where "they" came from. [as I wrote: "Anecdotes have emerged of amateur gunmen firing on non-combatants, lobbing RPGs into the sea or, more frequently, abandoning their positions without a fight."] Now, I make no pretence to be a conflict journalist, so I didn't go charging out to 'aisha bakkar to check out the action first hand, and I know Future had seasoned fighters next door in tariq al-jadideh, but the guys I saw in qasqas looked like neighbourhood shabab. Without carrying out some kind of comprehensive poll of all the pro-government forces on west Beirut streets on those days, there's no way to distinguish how many of the fighters were from northern Lebanon [a friend of mine in who lives in abi talib told me he ran into a future guy he knows who's a Jordanian citizen]. I'm tempted to speculate that there weren't many northerners involved in the west beirut fight for the same reason that the psp didn't have many people here. you know that jumblatt pulled his fighters out of Beirut you'll never get a straight answer as to why, but I assume he did so because he knew they couldn't win in west beirut and would do better on their own turf. it's still a bit muddy to me exactly what happened in alay, but the provocation of the kidnap that got the ball rolling there suggests jumblatt was contemplating a scenario in which hizbullah would engage his men on the mountain, where a/ the psp would have an advantage and b/ the chances were better that opposition fighters would alienate aoun supporters and possibly give the kataeb and quwaat a reason to enter the fray. Reports I received from shouf after the alay clashes had it that the durzis were celebrating another victory, because (as they had it at the time) only two psp men were wounded while the hizb (or whoever was doing the fighting there) lost at least 12 men. To my knowledge, in fact, neither side has confirmed their losses from alay. I didn't write any of this in the merip piece because I wanted to focus on west Beirut and because it's all complete speculation. The notion that neither the psp nor future fielded their best fighters in west Beirut suggests the crafty, media-attuned cynicism of jumblatt's original (airport) provocation but to write that they limited their armed involvement in west beirut would (in addition to being unverifiable) have given them too easy a ride. You then write: "And in the paragraph in which the author waxes poetic about representative government in...LEBANON of all places--the author seems to believe that all groups that did not oppose Syrian military presence in Lebanon should be excluded from the political process. I certainly would have agreed with that if the author remained consistent by placing Jumblat and Hariri in that camp--those were the staunchest clients of the Syrian regime after all, as was Amal and later Hizbullah." I'm afraid you lost me with this criticism, since I deny neither the opposition's right to inclusion in the process nor Future and PSP complicity in the Syrian occupation. the only reference to "representative government" in the merip-online piece comes at the beginning of the section explaining the political background to the May crisis. I write: "Anyone believing in representative democratic government, civil society activism and the like would have difficulty condoning an opposition group organizing such a paramilitary action against a national capital, regardless of how representative and democratic the government in question might be." I assume that the left-liberal audience that reads merip [and the angry arab], and that are most likely to be alienated from television representations of an "opposition coup" in beirut, tend to believe in representative government and civil activism. they are also likely to assume, thanks to western media representations of this conflict, that the sinyura government is representative. It's not, of course, which is why the sentence ends the way it does: "regardless of how representative and democratic the government in question might be." I'm a little mystified that you mistook these lines as some kind of defence of the sinyura government's "representativness," when in the very next paragraph, while discussing 2005's four-way coalition, I write: "Not the most democratic electoral legislation ever devised, the 2000 law was designed by the Syrian occupation regime to favor Lebanon's compact minorities in the Druze and Christian communities. Though, as the plurality, Shi'i politicians dislike the 2000 law, it suited both (the now anti-Syrian) Jumblatt as well as the various Christian camps -- all of whom prefer to vote for "their own" deputies." It seems to me that these lines do remind the reader that: a/ "(the now anti-Syrian)" Jumblatt was once pro-Baath; b/ because it favoured the country's compact minorities, the 2000 electoral law is undemocratic, yaani unfair to lebanon's largest minority, the Shi'a, who manifestly deserve to be included in the political process. again, I take it as known that hariri the elder was part of the drafting of the 2000 electoral law, indeed that he [that is to say, his entire reconstruction regime] was far more systemically intimate with the Syrian occupation than mere complicity a electoral law would suggest. My merip-online piece alludes to this business in its discussion of the role of the army in the west beirut conflict, but the issue is dealt with in more detail in a piece I wrote for merip-online on nahr al-barid. http://www.merip.org/mero/mero061807.html] You then write: "And then the author says: "Security Forces (ISF), also failed to behave in a manner that citizens of North American or Western European countries would expect." But what he is trying to say is this: o Western readers. Don't ever mistake the native for the civilized White Man." I can only assume that you mean this as a joke. These lines are from the "Whither the Peacekeepers?" section of the story. This section was written in because I assume the audience that's reading this piece (the left-liberal audience that reads merip [and the angry arab], and that are most likely to be alienated from television representations of an "opposition coup" in west beirut) will have certain expectations about how armies and police forces are supposed to operate, and so would have difficulty understanding the way the isf and army behaved in beirut in early May. the analytical utility of your accusing me of racism (in jest, surely) is unclear to me. You then write: "And then he provided this account: "When, in February 1984, President Amin Gemayel tried to deploy the army in West Beirut (to fill the vacuum left by Israeli withdrawal...." Excuse me?? What was that about? Israel had left West Beirut humiliatingly in 1982, and Gemayyel deployed that Army not to fill any vacuum but to try to crush a rebellion against his sectarian policies (ironically by sectarian Druze and Shi`ite militias at the time) and against the imposition of the May 17 Agreement between Phalange's Lebanon and Israel." The purpose of this stroll down memory lane (again from "Whither the Peacekeepers?") is to point out the difficulties entailed in mobilising the Lebanese army during civil-sectarian conflict - for the benefit of outside readers who have certain expectations of how an army is supposed to behave. your rebuke provides more detail as to what went on in west beirut between the Israeli withdrawal in 1982 and gemayel's attempt to deploy the army there but, in the context of this merip-online story [which by this point was running over 3000 words], I decided not to linger too long on the details. You then write: "And here is his description of the Lebanese Army'ssavage destruction of the Nahr Al-Barid: "From May to September 2007 the army had to contend with the crisis at Nahr al-Barid Palestinian refugee camp." A crisis where the entire residents of the camp were displaced and when at least 47 Palestinian civilians were killed. Here is his account of the death toll: "420 people killed, 168 of them soldiers." He only countsthe Lebanese Army soldiers it seems. And the author seems to have been touched by the support provided to the Army's destruction fo the camp by the government and the opposition alike: he called it "national unity." This is like calling Nazism "patriotism." And then he says: "the country was principally united against the Palestinians (for having "allowed" Fatah al-Islam to settle in the camp." I don't care if you put the word "allowed" in quotation marks, the residents had no say when the fighters of Fath Al-Islam came to the camp under the watchful eyes of Hariri troops." Again you draw upon material from my effort to provide some historical context for the Lebanese army's role in the events of early May and accusations, arising from pro-government circles, that the army was complicit in the opposition action. Whether you approve of it or not, media representations of the nahr al-barid crisis did encourage Lebanese to fall in line (unquestioningly) behind the army as a symbol of national unity, effectively to unify against the Palestinian refugee community. With the exception of some people I know who were providing relief to the multiply-displaced residents of nahr al-barid and a (very) few journalists, many lebanese people seem to have obliged. From the tone of your rejoinder, you seem to be suggesting that (in this discussion of the Lebanese army) I am not sufficiently sympathetic towards the people of nahr al-barid. If you want to verify my credentials in this regard, I suggest you read the merip-online piece to mentioned above. You then write: "And then your "leftist" author absolves the Bush administration from responsibility by saying this: " On the other hand, as Washington's relationship with Israel has amply demonstrated, international clientelism leaves a fair degree of play between patron and client regimes." Oh, yeah. Sanyurh and Dahlan and Maliki exercise as much sovereignty in their decisions as Israel does. I am convinced, are you? He wants to assume that the Bush administration allows Dahlan puppets to act with freedom. This is like saying that Israel allowed Antoine Lahd to do what he wished, or that the Syrian regime allowed Birri or Hariri or Lahhud to do what they wished." I can't imagine that Washington's relationship with any of its Arab clients is so strong as to survive one of them sinking a US naval vessel, as the US-Israeli relationship has. You will note, though, that I did not write "international clientelism gives the same degree of play to arab client regimes as it does to israel." Actually, the paragraph you quote continues with this sentence: "Opposition watchers have insisted upon Hizballah's operational autonomy from Damascus and Tehran, and the same privilege ought to be accorded to Hariri and Jumblatt." The explicit comparison isn't between America's Lebanese clients and its Israeli clients, but between hizbullah and 14 march as clients of contending patrons. If I had anything better than circumstantial evidence that the US was the micro-managing puppet-master in this crisis, I'd have been delighted to blast away. It is in the nature of clientelism, I think, that local actors must be able to represent themselves as having some freedom of manoeuvre - their local credibility demands it. my piece says nothing about the thug Dahlan, of course, and the brief reference to malaki's move against sadr is prefaced: "Realities in Iraq are quite different than in Lebanon." In any case, I find it difficult to find any absolution of the US in these words, written just before the ones you quote: "Washington's responsibility resides in the culture of intransigence it has helped to cultivate in the Siniora government since the 2006 war and its consistent rejection of dialogue with the opposition." You then write: "And here he offers some words of criticisms (or praise) to Hariri media: " True, the Hariri-owned media (like most Lebanese media) is a neo-feudal institution whose principles of disinterested journalism have badly lapsed since 2005." What was that? So before 2005 those media were objective and only after 2005 their high professional standards "declined"? And is lapses a reference to deadly sectarian agitation and mobilization by Hairri media?" well you can't deny that that the journalistic standards of Future TV and its media cousins are far worse now than they were before Hariri the elder's assassination. I'm under no delusions about the journalistic integrity of the hariri media before then, but the purpose of this article isn't to attack the hariri political machine in its totality. it is a piece of limited scope that criticises and contextualises government behaviour over the last 18 months, though it does point out that "The ensuing bitterness [against Hizbullah on the part of Lebanese Sunnis] is unlikely to be assuaged by reminding them how many opposition media outlets Rafiq al-Hariri shut down when he was prime minister." You finally write: "The author concludes by a warning about Arab culture: "a complex of shame and desire for revenge." The only thing missing from the piece is a reference to shoes and how they are used for humiliation in Arab culture."This is a mischievous way for you to close your critique. Oh, and you should know that I don't imagine mischievousness is unique to arab culture, any more than a desire for revenge when one feels betrayed. The entire sentence -- that you, in your haste, could only quote in part -- runs as follows: "Among those government loyalists more comfortable with the language of militancy, this anxiety and frustration is woven into a complex of shame and desire for revenge, particularly among those whose friends and relatives were killed." As you can see, the group to whom I ascribe a "complex of shame and desire for revenge", into which is woven a more general sense of "anxiety and frustration" is made up of "those government loyalists more comfortable with the language of militancy." Once again, I must apologise for any lack of clarity here, but it seems to me that "pro-government militants" is a rather more specific group than the one suggested by your more sweeping phrase "Arab culture." I enjoy a light-hearted jab in the ribs as much as the next guy, but I fear anyone reading your blog with anything approaching the same haste with which you were forced to compose this particular critique would find reason to conclude that the author in question [me], is a bigoted, racist, three-piece suit employed by one of Future's several information services. As I know and respect your work (and have a number of trusted friends and colleagues who do the same), it seems inconceivable that you would deliberately want to misrepresent the content of my article to your readership. In lieu of this, there may be shortcomings in the clarity of my writing, an occupational hazard to which any writer and his editors must confess liability. perhaps the critic [you] at times inadvertently mis-read the piece. I'm inclined to believe the latter is as likely as the former, simply because I know how time-consuming it is to teach the middle east in a north american university and how taxing it is to fulfil your obligations as a public intellectual. I've tried to do both, but never both at the same time, as you do: in such circumstances, hasty assessments are also an occupational hazard. In beirut, the gravest danger a foreign journalist is likely to face is being thought of as an orientalist and/ or racist. It can be tiresome to be made to refute such accusations, but the work of anyone who has been given the privilege of representing any region ought to be subject to scrutiny, regardless of where his or her parents happen to come from. this is one of the great services your blog provides and it would be a great tragedy if your work was called into question by accusations of inaccuracy or wanton misrepresentation. Again, I apologise for the length of this note but I hope it has clarified a few things. Keep up the good work. Thoughtful and incisive critique of politics in this region is at a particular premium these days.Sincerely yours,Jim Quilty"

When I look at scenes of the Lebanese parliament, I remember my childhood. My brothers and I used to play in that hall as kids, and we used to sit on the balcony and watch parliamentary sessions (my father was an employee in the parliament). I remember I was once passing by the accountant of the parliament (he later became a member of parliament in 1972 on the list of Kamil Al-As`ad) as a child: and he invited me in and opened the safe: and stuffed my pockets with coins. From the treasury itself!!! I left learning about Lebanese state accounting what I knew not before.

Since 1943, only once did the Lebanese not know the results of the president's election in parliament before the election itself. Only in 1970, the Lebanese did not know who was going to win, and it was only because the foreign embassies could not reach an agreement before hand.

"It seems that an Arab man can now get on the cover of a romance novel in the United States almost more easily than he can get past airport security: According to the Chicago Tribune, the sales of sheik-themed romance novels have quadrupled in the years since the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. Up to 20 of these novels per year, with titles like Expecting the Sheikh’s Baby, The Sheikh’s Virgin, and The Sheik and the Bride Who Said No, go through print runs of 100,000 copies or more. Typically, these stories feature a white American or British heroine who travels to a fictional Arab country (messy real-life politics aren’t welcome in the world of romance fiction), becomes involved with an Arab prince through accident and/or circumstance, and ultimately marries him. Some of these sheiks* are polished business magnates, while others hark back to the Valentino-style desert Bedouin of yore. But they all have a few things in common: All of them are rich and powerful, all of them are irresistibly sexy, and all of them are dangerous." (thanks Gabriela)

This is funny. One day after the appearance of my article on the (imaginary) letter from the former leftist to Hanni Hammud (adviser to Hariri family, and editor of Hariri newspaper), the latter responded by hosting the former leftist in his newspaper. The former leftist accused me of furthering Israeli interests by attacking Saudi Arabia's royal family. He also accused me of links with AIPAC, and of insulting "martyr Rafiq Hariri." Enough said.

Lebanese newspapers are reporting that Hasan Nasrallah will be meeting soon with Sa`d Hariri. Don't be surprised if the sectarian Sunni, Shi`ite, and Druze political forces come together again in the next parliamentary election, they way they did back in the last election. This is Lebanon.

Norman: You are under no obligation to tell anything to Israeli interrogators and torturers, and your ban would not change by asserting your support for the "two-state solution". Do you know how many Palestinian supporters of the two-state (it should be called a state and 1/5th of a state, not two-states) have been killed by Israeli occupation troops? "I did my best to provide absolutely candid and comprehensive answers to all the questions put to me. I am confident that I have nothing to hide. Apart from my political views, and the supporting scholarship, there isn't much more to say for myself: alas, no suicide missions or secret rendezvous with terrorist organizations. I've always supported a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders. I'm not an enemy of Israel."" (thanks Nader)

Comic by Terry Furry, reproduced from "Heard the One About the Funny Leftist?" by Cris Thompson, East Bay Express

As'ad's Bio

As'ad AbuKhalil, born March 16, 1960. From Tyre, Lebanon, grew up in Beirut. Received his BA and MA from American University of Beirut in pol sc. Came to US in 1983 and received his PhD in comparative government from Georgetown University. Taught at Tufts University, Georgetown University, George Washington University, Colorado College, and Randolph-Macon Woman's College. Served as a Scholar-in-Residence at Middle East Institute in Washington DC. He served as free-lance Middle East consultant for NBC News and ABC News, an experience that only served to increase his disdain for maintream US media. He is now professor of political science at California State University, Stanislaus. His favorite food is fried eggplants.

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